During the campaign, the Platform pledged to deliver 100 details for 100 days of governance. As the 100th day approached, it became evident that not only would many of those promises remain unfulfilled, but that even a portion of the stated measures had not moved forward. The plan to raise teacher salaries was rushed into motion, yet it drew resistance from both interested parties and the local authorities who would bear the cost. In practice, only a small group of teachers would receive the promised increase of PLN 1,500. This is the amount repeatedly promised by Donald Tusk. For the vast majority of teachers, the actual increases ranged from PLN 1,100 to PLN 1,300. Moreover, although officials claimed that local governments would receive higher education subsidies to fully cover these pay rises, many municipalities did not obtain those funds. As a result, the higher pay scales had to be partly financed from the municipalities’ own resources, sources that are typically short at the start of the year. Consequently, the flagship pledge of the new government is not being fully realized. By December, most teachers would receive the pay increases only in April, with compensation from January, and at a lower rate than promised. Smaller local units, in particular, faced real budget constraints and could not cover the full increases.
Even a policy that did not require new budget resources faced delays and revisions. When a decision was finally made, it appeared to favor banks rather than ordinary citizens. The policy in question offered credit holidays to young people renewing or purchasing their first homes. Although the Council of Ministers moved to adopt a draft law on credit holidays for 2024, the changes significantly reduced the pool of eligible borrowers. A cap on the loan amount up to PLN 1.2 million and an income criterion—where only households spending more than 30 percent of their income on loan repayments would qualify—are likely to leave roughly thirty percent of current borrowers eligible. Everything points to a win for banks in the clash between political aims and financial institutions, as the banks opposed broader exemptions from the outset and pushed criteria that would sharply reduce eligibility compared with the government’s plan.
Spot removed
No member of the ruling coalition publicly referenced prized campaign pledges such as a tax-free allowance of PLN 60,000 for PIT, the option to deduct health insurance premiums for business owners, or ZUS holidays. In fact, a well-known election spot in which Platform leaders, led by the current Minister of Finance, MP Andrzej Domański, promised salaries up to PLN 5,000 per month before tax has been erased from social media. Five Platform lawmakers—Kinga Gajewska, Arkadiusz Myrcha, Izabela Leszczyna, Arkadiusz Marchewka, and Andrzej Domański—are actively attempting to minimize the visible traces of their party’s election rhetoric.
The Platform now proposes to recast several campaign promises into revised versions of earlier proposals, much like the so-called grandmother’s benefit. This benefit would provide PLN 1,500 monthly to support grandmothers so that mothers can return to work. However, to qualify for this benefit, recipients must sign an employment contract with a caregiver, and a mother who returns to work cannot earn more than the minimum wage. It is hard to see how such a measure would realistically ease mothers back into the workforce, and it may end up creating more stress for those it intends to help.
Some promises vanish without trace, others survive only in a diluted form, and some are altered enough to resemble caricatures of the original proposals. In this environment, critics expect that the ruling coalition will take four years to fulfill promises that were once touted as immediate, since few people still assume a program of 100 promises would be deployed 100 times a day. The political dynamic suggests a shift from bold claims to gradual adjustments, reflecting the practical challenges of governing.